On Sunday, CNN reported that employees at Breitbart — which has a well-deserved reputation for promoting Islamophobia, sexism, and white nationalism — variously found McHugh’s tweets to be “appalling, “terrible,” and “dumb.”

But as CNN reported, in since-deleted tweets, another Breitbart writer named Ryan Saavedra defended McHugh, writing, “People think I’m kidding when I say this but the crusades need to come back… This shit won’t stop until people grow a pair of balls.”

Her tweet linked to a fundraising page that claims McHugh “was fired on June 5 for telling the truth about Islam and immigration in Europe.”

“Instead of giving her a raise, Breitbart squealed at pressure from leftist CNN, which apparently has anonymous pro-Islam sources at Breitbart, and fired her,” the fundraising page says. “Why is Breitbart silencing Katie McHugh for telling the truth about Islam?… Katie McHugh has essential medical bills that she has to pay, while finding another job. Support Katie and send a message to Breitbart, the liberal media, and apologists for Islamic terrorism.”

The fundraising page also contains the following statement from McHugh.

Breitbart News fired an editor for speaking frankly about Islam and Muslim immigration. If there were no Muslims in London, there would be no Muslim terror attacks, period.

I said nothing wrong. As President Donald Trump says, if we don’t get smart, it will only get worse.

It’s also interesting Breitbart News chose to fire me rather than colleagues leaking to CNN.

Saturday’s tweets were far from the first time McHugh posted offensive comments on Twitter.

Mexicans wrecked Mexico & think invading the USA will magically cure them them of their retarded dysfunction. LOL. https://t.co/H5D7YFLGNQ

Though her tweets are obviously reprehensible, McHugh has good reason to be confused about Breitbart’s decision to fire her. The site used to be run by Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who described it as “the platform for the alt-right” — a euphemism popularized by Richard Spencer, head of the white supremacist National Policy Institute (NPI), one of the country’s leading contemporary advocates of ideological racism.

Under Bannon’s watch, Breitbart published articles with headlines like, “The solution to online ‘harassment’ is simple: Women should log off,” “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy,” “Hoist it high and proud: The Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage,” and “There’s no hiring bias against women in tech, they just suck at interviews.”

The site also regularly gave some of the world’s most notorious Islamophobes a platform to publish pieces like, “Stopping Islamic Immigration Is a Matter or Survival” and “How Many Fort Hood-Style Jihad Attacks Must There Be?” Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, the site came under fire for running a fake news story about a Muslim mob setting fire to a church in Germany.

As this is published, Breitbart still features a “BLACK CRIME” section. And yet, in Trump’s America, the site has become more mainstream than ever. In April, a Breitbart piece was shared by the Twitter account of the branch of the Department of Defense responsible for the nuclear arsenal.

As McHugh alludes to in her statement, her Islamophobic rhetoric draws inspiration from President Trump, who used the London attack to again agitate for his Muslim ban. In the wake of the attack in London, Trump decided to use Twitter to repeatedly smear London’s Muslim mayor and tweeted about the need to “stop being politically correct.”